Snipp appoints Bally's executive Adi Dhandhania to board; Tom Burgess as president of new SnippMEDIA division

Digital marketing promotions and loyalty solutions provider Snipp Interactive Inc. has appointed Adi Dhandhania to its board of directors, and Tom Burgess as President of SnippMEDIA, a new division of Snipp.

Dhandhania, Chief Operating Officer, North America for Bally’s Interactive, has been named to the role as a nominee of Bally’s Corporation pursuant to its $5 million investment in Snipp, which was first unveiled in April. His appointment to the Board is subject to acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange.

Dhandhania, who has spent over a decade in the gaming and technology industry, is expected to bring experience in corporate strategy, M&A, and business operations to Snipp’s board. The executive is a CFA charterholder, has an MS from Brown University, an MBA from Bryant University, and a BS from Johnson & Wales University.

"We are excited to welcome Adi to our Board and benefitting from his extensive industry expertise,” commented Atul Sabharwal, CEO & Founder of Snipp. “Adi's guidance and input will be invaluable as we scale Gambit Rewards, our recently acquired Loyalty Gaming Platform, and in evaluating and advising on acquisition opportunities.”

Atul Sabharwal, CEO & Founder of Snipp

Additionally, Snipp has also announced the appointment of Tom Burgess as President of SnippMEDIA, “a new division of Snipp Interactive.” Burgess will be transitioning from his long-standing role as a director of Snipp to becoming a member of Snipp’s executive management and lead efforts to scale SnippMEDIA.

The Vancouver-headquarter company describes its new SnippMEDIA division as “a disruptive payments media network where Snipp’s CPG clients can reach 100’s of millions of consumers through consumer banks’ digital channels to drive both in-store and online sales.”

Supporting both impression and performance-based media models, SnippMEDIA allows the aggregation of first, second and third-party consumer purchase data through distinct channels for targeting and reporting at the SKU/UPC data level. The company will be sharing more information on this offering “shortly.”

A press release describes Burgess as a seasoned executive in online and wireless interactive advertising and digital media technology. “As a serial entrepreneur and innovator he has been granted multiple patents for his pioneering work in the wireless, mar-tech and loyalty industries,” it reads.

Burgess, a frequent speaker at global marketing conferences, has been quoted or featured in publications such as Forbes, NY Times and Wall Street Journal. In 2021, he became CRO/CMO at Triple, a PNC Bank company. He founded payments loyalty company Linkable Networks in 2010, and was CEO until its sale to Collinson Group in 2017.

Before that, he founded wireless advertising company Third Screen Media in 2001, which was purchased by AOL/TW in 2007. Also in 2007, he was inducted into the Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. He is described as “an active Board Member and advisor to early-stage ventures,” and holds a Bachelor of Arts from Providence College.

According to the Sabharwal, Snipp has identified an opportunity to expand its share of wallet with existing clients “by helping them leverage the unique behavioral datasets that the SnippCARE Platform generates” on the programs Snipp executes for them.

“Historically we have not captured client budgets on the media side of the programs we execute,” explained Sabharwal. “This offering allows us to introduce a value-added service as part of our Customer Acquisition Retention and Engagement Platform, SnippCARE.”

Client media budgets are a multiple of their current spend on the program execution, which Sabharwal says would give Snipp “a real opportunity to rapidly grow our average campaign size and overall revenues as we scale this offering.”

Finally, Snipp made a third additional announcement: a total grant of 10,000,000 stock options to the board of directors (other than Dhandhania) and five officers. The options are to be exercisable at a price of C$0.145 ($0.11) per common share and expire after 5 years and vest in tranches between the grant date and June 12, 2025.